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Violence erupts as four are shot dead at Ouattara rally

Four people were shot dead in clashes in Abidjan Tuesday, following a rally in support of Ivory Coast's internationally recognised president, Alassane Ouattara. The country has been gripped by violence since the disputed November 28 election.

AFP - More deadly violence erupted in Ivory Coast Tuesday after a rally by followers of the internationally-recognised president, as his defiant rival Laurent Gbagbo snubbed an African Union mediation bid.

At least three men and a woman were the latest victims of an increasingly bloody post-electoral crisis, which the UN fears could become a full-blown civil war, when they were shot dead in Abidjan's Treichville neighbourhood.

According to medics and AFP correspondents at the scene, the four were killed in violence which flared following a rally by hundreds of supporters of Alassane Ouattara, who was Gbagbo's challenger in November's run-off.

Several other people were wounded in the violence which comes only days after seven women were shot dead at a similar a rally last week.

Witnesses also said that a police bus was torched in Tuesday's flare-up which again underlined how the situation is deteriorating while the continent's leaders struggle to persuade Gbagbo to relinquish the presidency.

Although both men have been invited to Thursday's talks at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front party said their man would not attend "because of the deterioration of the domestic security situation".

The incumbent has refused to hand power to Ouattara, who is internationally regarded as the winner of the run-off election, despite mediation, sanctions and the threat of intervention.

The African Union invited the rivals to talks in its latest bid to end a dispute that has deteriorated into the worst conflict since clashes in 2004, with at least 370 people killed since mid-December, according to UN figures.

Tens of thousands have also fled, with 75,000 entering Liberia and 200-300,000 leaving their homes in the main city Abidjan, the UN refugee agency said Thursday.

Ouattara, holed up in Abidjan's Golf Hotel under a blockade by forces loyal to Gbagbo, has accepted the invitation to Thursday's meeting, which will include five African presidents tasked with resolving the crisis.

He is protected by troops of a United Nations mission and the New Forces armed group, which controls the northern half of the country.

Also invited to the Ethiopian capital was Paul Yao N'Dre, the head of the Constitutional Council that rejected the election authority's ruling that Gbagbo had lost the vote, backing his claims to still be in power.

However Yao N'Dre was not seen at the airport with the two men headed to Ethiopia. It was not immediately possible to confirm if he was making the trip.